Two men from Afghanistan tried to cross the Serbo-Croatian border, by hiding in a truck. At the scanner check on the Croatian side of the border crossing Sid – Tovarnik they were caught by police officers described as Croatian police. First the police took a picture of the two men while they were inside the truck.

The interviewee declared that after his clothes were searched, the police didn’t allow him to take his shoes from the truck. He asked for asylum but the police told them “Go back to Serbia!”. He was taken to a small room at the border crossing, where the police asked for his personal data, filling in some forms. They didn’t give him any papers.

Afterwards they put him in a police van and turned on the cold air conditioning. He was kept in the van for 6 or 7 hours, from 4am. to 11am. At around 11am. Croatian police transferred him directly to what he described as the Serbian border police. He was still without shoes when the Serbian police drove him to the police station in Sid. At the police station the police asked again for his personal information.

He went to a court, where the judge asked him to pay a fine of 5000 dinar (approx. 50 euros) for illegal border crossing. A fine he had already paid once in July last year. This time he didn’t have enough money so he was sent to jail in Sremska Mitrovica, where he was kept for 5 days. They gave him a deportation paper, giving him 30 days to leave Serbia and a prohibition of entrance for one year. The other man who was with the interviewee person also went to jail for the same period of time.